


Five Shots

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: 18th century chinese bowls, AU where Will is dead, Alcohol, Established Relationship, Fluff, Jazz - Freeform, Longing, M/M, Memories, Office Sex, Smoking, based vaguely in the ya'aburnee verse, discussions of fishing, near-public sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 00:19:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1877967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“You asked, once,” he murmurs, French slurred but soft, taken up by the wind and carried away. He’s certain he’s heard, regardless, “what you would do without me.”</i><br/>-</p><p>"Will dying. Hannibal responding. I don't care if it's a happy ending or not, at which point of time it happens, I just want to see what goes on in Lecter's mind and how he handles the death." - <a href="http://bansheegrahamtao.tumblr.com/">banshee_tao</a></p><p>We used a lot of references from the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/103067">Ya'aburnee Verse</a>, but you can read this easily without having read the set. Simply that some references may be lost if you don't have the series behind you.</p><p>Well, love, we hope you like it. - <a href="http://wwhiskeyandbloodd.tumblr.com/">W&B</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Shots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [banshee_tao](https://archiveofourown.org/users/banshee_tao/gifts).



> Written for this summer's [Hannibal-ACCA](http://hannibal-acca.tumblr.com/) project, the site and tumblr have permission to post this work on their pages.
> 
> If you'd like to donate for July and August to receive a commission, check out all the info [here](http://www.gofundme.com/9hqvpc), we'd love to see you!

It’s quiet, where they buried him, as Hannibal supposes graveyards should be. A place of peace, since it’s the promise for everyone in this life to find peace in another. And another. And another.

The leaves aren’t long to fall from the trees, now, the beautiful colors gone from gold and red and fiery orange to dull brown and brass, hissing as the wind hits the branches but steadfastly hanging on until the snow.

He’d promised Will this, long ago when he’d asked, a comment in passing, something asked in a serious moment in a pleasant time, and he hadn’t forgotten. The bottle hangs from limp fingers and a shot glass is held secure against the neck by Hannibal’s middle finger over the rim.

The flowers on the grave shift with the motion of the wind but never topple, and Hannibal regards them, head tilted and mouth working in a gentle smile before settling himself down on the ground in front of them, one leg outstretched and the other drawn up so he can rest his wrist on his knee. He can feel the cool grass through his suit. The earth smells alive beneath him.

If he closes his eyes, the wind through the grass sounds like a river, and he sets the glass to the headstone before uncapping the bottle to pour.

_It flows slower in fall._

Hannibal smiles, sets the bottle beside the glass before taking the first up and sitting back.

“Does it matter?” he asks softly, watches the bunch of wildflowers shiver in the wind before he breathes out and takes the shot in a single swallow.

_“Have you tried standing knee-deep in fast-flowing water?”_

“No,” Hannibal says, smiling wider. “And I don’t ever plan to.”

The sun filters through the curtains, late afternoon and just the right side of warm. Will is shucking his clothes carelessly, tossing them to the chest Hannibal sets at the base of his bed. He smells like fresh water and dogs, like silt and the mechanic smell of air conditioning from his car. Hannibal undresses much more carefully, one hand working the cufflink through his sleeve as the other curls lightly, holding the one he’d already freed against his palm.

Will tugs his belt undone and glances back at Hannibal. His attention drops briefly to the cufflinks, pleased he doesn’t have to bother with them, and equally pleased, in a peculiar way, that Hannibal chooses to bother with them.

“It’s hard,” Will responds. “You figure the water’s knee-high but that’s if it wasn’t rushing against you. After a good rain in the spring it’ll come up to about your thighs anywhere you can find to stand. Even if it’s not enough to make you lose your balance, you’re still working against the pressure of it. Cold water, resistance - your legs cramp up.”

Will steps out of his pants and tosses them alongside his shirt. His glasses are dropped unceremoniously on the nightstand before he pushes both hands back through his hair and in only his undershirt and boxers, turns to watch Hannibal.

“You’d never even try it?”

“I wouldn’t dream of imposing,” responds Hannibal.

A brow arches and Will shrugs a little.

“So that’s why you wait until fall,” he continues, sliding back onto the bed. “There’s not enough snow yet to feed the river too much and there's just enough rain that the water’s a little higher than in summer,” Will indicates, with a measured back-and-forth gesture of his hand. “But you have to wait for the fish.”

Brightened by a brief grin, as though this were simple common sense, Will peels off his undershirt and leans back against the headboard. He draws a knee to his chest and sets his chin against it, distracted by Hannibal disassembling his suit, revealing himself in precisely regimented inches.

Hannibal looks up, fingers against the buttons of his shirt and smile warm as he listens. And he does listen, to every word.

“Since the fish will not wait for you?” he prompts, amused. The shirt gets hung up, fingers careful to adjust the shoulders on the hanger before it goes into the closet. The pants are removed next, folded precisely and placed on a hanger of their own. The closet closes with a gentle click as the magnets connect between the sliding door and the wall, and Hannibal turns to regard the mess at the base of his bed.

He frowns, just the pressing of his lips together, but ignores it, moves to join Will in bed for no other reason than to feel Will in bed with him. He can’t remember when the routine established but it’s stuck; difficult days at work for them both, concluded with the sharing of words and space and touch. Late dinner. Occasional early mornings after.

He settles in bed in a more reclined position, pushing up another pillow to keep from fully lying, but not sitting as Will is. He smiles at him, tilts his head.

“What fish do you make your lures for?” he asks.

Will blinks and another smile catches him, the aches and complaints of the day forgotten as he tilts onto his side and lays against Hannibal. The contact is welcome, skin against skin and warmth against warmth without any more pressing need than that.

“Brookies, mostly,” he answers, and corrects himself now in his excitement to explain. “Brook trout. They’re a native fish. Out here they come in at maybe a pound, little bit more sometimes, fully grown. Maybe ten inches. But I did catch one just over a foot last fall.” 

He glides Hannibal’s hair back from his face where it’s already fallen loose, letting his touch linger there for a moment more before his hand drops to Hannibal’s chest.

“The fish wait for no one,” he grins, speaking a little faster, dawning enthusiasm. “Brookies spawn in October, so you’d only ever get little ones if you tried for them in the spring. I mean, you might get a shad or something, but,” he waves the thought away as though it were an annoyance. “It’s better to wait until they’re spawning - there’s a lot more of them. And at that point, they’re getting fat and happy and have more interest in the lures since the flies that breed in the river are dying off.” Will unsettles himself just as quickly as he was settled, propping himself up on his elbow to watch his fingers press through the hair on Hannibal’s chest.

Animated, now, as his eyes catch Hannibal’s and find him present. Attentive. Hanging on every word as though Will were discussing the intricacies of French cuisine rather than standing thigh-deep in a river reeling in fish.

Will wraps a leg over Hannibal’s hip, to press a foot against his thigh. “There’s a lot to think about. Everything interacts with everything else. The rains affect the water levels which affects the flies which affect the fish. It all fits together.”

"An endless circle," Hannibal agrees, smiling as Will continues his impassioned explanation.

He is entirely consumed, enthralled by his topic, knowledgeable and pleased to share it, and Hannibal can’t get enough of him. Will gestures when he speaks, often, hands spreading and turning to explain the mechanism of the rod he uses, to express the difficulty with which the fish has to be reeled in, if it fights.

Will is lost in motion, lost in himself, but his eyes always return to Hannibal's, to make sure he's listening, that he wants to be, and Hannibal continues to take in every word.

At one point, Will’s leg shifts higher against Hannibal’s, a gesture of closeness rather than an implication, and Hannibal shifts, turns to rest on his back as Will follows the motion and straddles his stomach, one hand against his chest, the other drawing through his hair as he keeps speaking.

Hannibal's hands settle against Will’s knees, slide gently up his thighs and back down, around to hold his calves with strong, warm hands that are callused from their own hobbies and difficulties.

Will sinks against him, easing into the familiar way they fit together, and curls his fingers lightly against Hannibal’s chest.

“This is boring, isn’t it?” he asks, scarcely hiding a smile as he does, feeling warmly the rapt attention Hannibal holds on him and questioning it only to hear Hannibal reply.

“You’re fascinating.”

Hannibal means it, in this way and in every other, and Will grins. He lowers himself enough that their lips can brush in a simple, undemanding kiss, before settling back again.

“You’ll come with me,” Will assures him. “You’ll wait long enough that it’s a surprise, but you will.”

His thighs press closer to Hannibal’s sides, and he continues on, negotiating Hannibal through the differences in certain lures and removing his hands only from Hannibal to gesture minutely as to their movements in the water, as to the expanse of the river - arms going wide, as to the way the trees hang overhead and shadow the water in places where you can see clear enough into it to trace the shapes of catfish against the sunken leaves.

Will’s weight shifts and Hannibal blinks, warm limbed from the liquor and alone in the quiet space. The wind blows. He fiddles with the shot glass, round and round and round before setting it back to the gravestone and taking up the bottle to pour.

He wonders why his mind goes to such meaningless things, like casual evenings spent inside, like Will’s hands against his skin.

He'd never taken him fishing, in the end.

The liquid in the glass settles, only the top shifted by the wind, and Hannibal sets the bottle beside.

It should be colder here, where he sits against the earth that promises dampness but doesn't threaten it. His fingers are careful around the glass and he takes it to rest against his knee, the amber liquid clear, like the water Will described in its stiller moments, at sunset. 

With leaves and trees reflected within like a sepia imprint, an intricate pattern. And Hannibal smiles, licks his bottom lip into his mouth.

Exhales.

Drinks.

_"Will, is such a bowl necessary?"_

Will just looks up, grins, and places another over-full spoon of some disgusting excuse for breakfast cereal in his mouth.

"I was hungry," He replies, mercifully not facing Hannibal when he does. Hannibal's eyes take in the finer details of what Will has filled with his disturbing breakfast. The fine brown lines on the china, hand painted and intricate like a leaf skeleton in winter, like the wing of a moth. A rare color for the 18th century. Treasured. Valuable.

A bowl that has seen life and had earned its rest, now taken up again for... Capt'n Crunch.

“There are many bowls in this kitchen,” Hannibal ventures.

Will hears the caution in his voice like an airhorn, a peculiar light in his eyes when the corners crinkle up in response. “There are,” agrees Will, pushing the garish yellow cereal down into the milk with the flat of his spoon. “But this was the biggest one.”

“It was intended for use as a serving bowl,” Hannibal responds, observing the precise movements Will makes to maximize milk absorption.

Considering this, Will shrugs. “It’s serving,” he offers in return, eating a spoonful and only just resisting the temptation to watch Hannibal’s reaction. He, blessedly, covers his mouth with his hand as he responds, around the cereal, “I didn’t want to have to get up again to refill it.”

At this, Hannibal’s head tilts, just perceptibly. He turns from watching Will to the cabinet where the boxes of artificial sugar had appeared almost overnight, and turns back just as slowly. A few meters apart, if even that.

“Do you want some?”

Hannibal makes a sound that nears that of a wounded animal and turns to walk past Will instead.

“You have a very dark sense of humor before you have your coffee, Will,” he tells him, and Will laughs. A clear, warm sound that has Hannibal smiling despite himself, even when he hides it from his profiler.

“Then I suppose you’d better make me coffee,” Will replies, sucking his spoon deliberately clean when Hannibal turns to him again, brow raised. Will just blinks, uses the spoon to gesture over his shoulder.

“There’s a vase from the Ming Dynasty upstairs I was sizing up for a beer glass.”

Hannibal moves, too quickly for it to be a gentle gesture, but Will laughs despite himself and parts his lips obligingly when Hannibal kisses him to make him stop talking. He feels the sugar almost grind against his teeth with how obnoxiously artificial it is.

“It’s the Qing Dynasty,” Hannibal corrects him softly, and Will’s smile gentles.

“My mistake,” he murmurs, leans in to kiss Hannibal again.

_They were never mistakes._

Will’s inattention to detail was a deliberate game, a softening, a defense mechanism brought about by too long being told that he was too clever, too well-read, too _good_ for his position, his job, his life.

Hannibal licks his lips and sets the glass heavily against the headstone.

The flowers are still unmoved beneath, the wind passing through them and around but never toppling, never shifting them aside.

Wild flowers for a wild soul, Hannibal thinks. The lip of the bottle clicks against the glass when he pours again.

“You always liked the quiet,” he says softly, tone roughened by the alcohol, warmed by it. “Always resolved to keep it, cherish it like it was a gift.”

He licks his lips, takes up the glass. It grinds along the stone until Hannibal lifts it away, brings it to his lips.

He doesn’t exhale before the shot this time, and feels the scotch burn his throat, his tongue, set his senses on fire.

Will had always kept quiet, had never suffused Wolf Trap with anything but the gentle sounds of his animals, the soft sounds of his footfalls against the wooden floor. If he listened to music, it was through large headphones, old and oddly light for their size, the cord tangled and tied into endless knots as it trailed along the floor.

It was usually in the mornings, when Hannibal woke early and found himself alone.

The house creaking around him in ways that were becoming softly more and more familiar, the longer he spent out in Wolf Trap. On mornings like that, Will would be out of sight, sometimes upstairs, where he rarely went, other times in the bathroom or the kitchen, unable to sleep and trying to find tedium to set him there.

But sometimes he would be curled up by the fire, headphone cord trailing over his shoulder and back, across the room - across some dogs - to the old record player Hannibal had found for him. The only sound the hissing of the needle, the gentle clicks that were purely physical and added the life and depth to the music they underlined.

Most mornings, Will would remain asleep, but here, this time, his eyes are open, just bare blue beneath thick lashes, travelling over some hidden space Hannibal was not privy to. He doesn’t see Hannibal, he certainly doesn’t hear him. One of the dogs stirs, just the tip of the tail shifting at the sight of a familiar person. Will pays them no mind.

His fingers move, unconscious gestures following notes and rhythms unheard to any but himself. A silence with sound, feeling the stillness of the early morning settle against him even as warm tones fill his ears.

Immersed, entirely, in the nearest relaxation to sleep that Will can find without Hannibal.

A deep breath fills the quiet as he unfolds his legs, stretching languid, unaware of being watched. He shifts the cord from one side to the other, fingers trailing the tangled length of it to loosen enough that he can lay down.

One of the smaller dogs beside him moves, a mirrored stretch, before drawing up along his side and curling lazily again.

Eyes closed now, breath rising and falling at a practiced slowness, as Will settles onto his back against the fire-warmed floorboards.

Hannibal watches, lips tilting just enough in an expression that has no name beyond comfort, home, familiarity - _Will._

He steps closer, on silent bare feet, and kneels, places one warm hand against Will’s stomach and watches Will smile, the initial jolt of surprise passing through his body and away, muscles back to languid laxity. He doesn’t open his eyes, just lifts his hand to rest against Hannibal’s and draw it closer to his chest with a gentle hum.

Hannibal reaches, settles himself against the floor as well, cooler than he’d like but not freezing, and moves Will to rest on his side again, pulls him to warm his back against Hannibal’s chest. He can hear the faint hum of music through the headphones and gently reaches to pull them down, for them to hang loose around Will’s neck as they rest together.

Sleep calls to Will like this, weighing his limbs and touching his breath with soft, contented sounds, though it doesn’t find him yet. Lacing his fingers with Hannibal’s he tucks himself deeply beneath his doctor’s arm in much the same way he does the blankets in their beds, curling comfortably. Hannibal’s hand is drawn to his mouth, each fingertip brushed across his lips in turn.

Will shifts just a little to slide the headphones off and set them aside. His fingers follow the cord enough that he can give it a brief tug, practiced, and the plug pulls free of the player so that the music moves through the small speakers instead. The warm tones of jazz and quiet crackles of vinyl fill the room.

Opening up the little space that he found to surround Hannibal as well, the only person that would ever be brought into the places Will made for himself.

A world that existed only for them.

The wind picks up and Hannibal presses the side of his knuckles to his lips to keep the burn of the scotch against them a little longer. The glass hangs between his fingers trembles just barely from the quickly dropping temperature and the alcohol already in Hannibal’s system. Two more. He had promised two more.

_“Stay still.”_

Hannibal shakes his head and takes the bottle up, holding both aloft as he pours. The wind catches a few stray drops and tosses them to the grass.

_“Someone could come in -”_

Head back, his throat feels numb to it now, but the warmth spreads unmistakable, and Hannibal shakes his head with a laugh.

“They certainly will if you make another sound.”

Will shudders but there is nothing but desire within him, stretched bent over his own desk, one foot back to press against the door to keep it closed, hoping no one tries to take advantage of the broken lock, of his designated office hours.

Knowing his luck, today would be the day someone needed him.

Hannibal presses closer, rolls his hips against Will, pushes deeper with the motion, and wraps his hand around Will’s mouth when he whines with it.

“Will.” It’s purred, tinged with threat and promise, and does little to keep Will quiet.

Papers spread beneath Will’s splayed hand when he reaches out to grasp the other side of his meager desk. They flutter to the floor and another low moan is muffled against Hannibal’s palm. An apology, breathless, follows it as he braces his other fingers against the edge of the worn wood.

Buried deep, Hannibal stills to let Will adjust but all it does is send his profiler - his professor, here - shuddering, twisting futilely between Hannibal’s hips and the desk to find friction, movement.

Glasses skewed and shirt ruched up to the middle of his back, hair in tangles and cheeks scarlet. Wanton and eager and biting back another whimper as he looks back over his shoulder towards Hannibal. Will shoves his foot harder against the door, in part to drive himself back against Hannibal, eyes glinting mischievously.

The invitation is ignored, the thrusts remain shallow, languid, striking exactly where they need and sending Will into shivering and soft little noises, pliant and bent pleasingly against the desk.

Behind them, comes a knock, and they both still, absolutely silent in the tiny room now filled with messy papers. The knock comes again, louder, and a voice gently inquires of another if perhaps Professor Graham just isn’t in. Two girls, it seems, and Hannibal turns Will’s head just enough to watch his eyes slowly close in dismay.

Perhaps they wouldn’t leave, for a while.

Hannibal considers, sets his own foot back alongside Will’s to press to the door, and slowly pulls out to push back in.

Will’s breath leaves him in an aching shudder, stuttering free as softly as he can manage with Hannibal’s slow press inside of him. His stomach tightens - with pleasure, with panic - and he pulls his bottom lip into his mouth and bites. A whimper, faint, falls loose and Will muffles it against his own arm to find that the restraint of the sound results in a curve of his body down against the desk instead.

Eagerness and desire all seeking an outlet, if not through voice than through the turn of his hips. He’s forced onto the toes of the foot still against the ground, nearly laid flat across the desk, and a barely audible curse is hissed beneath his breath as there’s another knock and as though on cue, Hannibal moves faster, rather than deeper, little motions that make Will clench his fingers until his knuckles are white.

Long minutes pass, Hannibal unswayed by the curious voices outside the door checking their schedules to confirm that Will does, indeed, have office hours scheduled for now. And when they finally give up and their footsteps fall away, Will’s sigh is explosive.

“I’m going to get fucking fired,” he moans darkly against his arm.

Hannibal smiles, a low, pleased sound escaping him as he bends further over Will’s back, feels Will shudder with the pressure and depth of it, knows that he loves every moment and it’s incredibly arousing.

“I’m sure your clever mouth will save you,” he murmurs against his ear, ducks his head to bite just behind it and resumes the quick, shallow thrusts until Will is sobbing beneath him, a mix of French and English pouring from him in a desperate litany.

Hannibal spills some of the heavy liquid when he pours the last glass, his head fuzzy with it, limbs heavy and warm with it. Memories flooded, too quick, too much and does it matter? Does any of it? When he’s sitting here, uncaring for what the grass and mud will do to his suit when he stands, and Will is too far for him to reach? Does any of it matter except a promise to finally finish it?

He sets the bottle down to rest against his thigh and thinks of nothing. No early mornings and gentle conversation. No music. No dogs or river. He doesn’t think of the first time he had convinced Will to stand for a suit fitting, how utterly ravishing he had looked in the bespoke number. He doesn’t think of the dry eggs. He doesn’t think of jambalaya. 

He thinks of how he thinks of nothing, how everything seeps through his skin and he presses a hand to his eyes just to still the motion that the dizziness brings on, just to hold it together.

He remembers the smell of smoke.

He remembers the feeling of it, warmed by Will’s breath, as it caressed his skin, and Will denied him any other touch.

“Use your words,” he’d said, infuriatingly adopting Hannibal’s own tone for the command, before taking another drag, inhaling deep, and drawing a breath over Hannibal’s chest, making him arch with it.

“Again,” Hannibal says, and the wind around him whips up his hair from its tidiness to an arranged disarray.

“I can do it again.”

He takes the shot slowly, feeling the burn, the numbness, and committing it to memory. The glass he sets upside down on the gravestone, watches the drops slip to the rim and make a ring.

 _“Ask properly,”_ Will murmurs. “What, again?”

Hannibal sighs, eyes closed and neck vulnerable, arms splayed at his sides held down by nothing but Will’s quiet request not to move.

“Breathe,” Hannibal replies, lips quirking.

“You can,” Will assures him, amused. “You will.”

He resists the urge to touch him, to drink up all the warmth and promise that Hannibal’s prone form offers him in willing obeisance and to simply let it exist as it is between them. As it always was, with or without Will’s demanding it to be.

A crackle, quiet as the rustle of dry leaves, as Will takes another drag and leans low over Hannibal. A knowing look exchanged between them as their lips nearly brush, and Will sighs smoke softly spooling against Hannibal’s mouth. His breath is drawn as Will’s is exhaled and Will shivers to see it given form.

Hannibal holds it inside him for as long as he can stand, until his lungs burn with the effort and he relinquishes it into the air.

“Good,” Will responds gently. He watches the rise and fall of Hannibal’s chest, feels the steadiness of his heart as if it were his own even without placing his hand against it. He settles over him again. Another sensation of lips nearly meeting and without taking a drag, Will sighs slowly. Hannibal inhales to pull it inside him again, but there is no smoke to sear his lungs, nothing to cloud the air between them as he steals Will’s breath away.

Will smiles, and their mouths finally meet, pressing together.

Hannibal’s breath comes out in a rush and above him the leaves shiver with it.

It’s grown darker, colder, now, with how soon evening comes in fall. Hannibal hunches his shoulders against it, contemplates the words carved into the gravestone. Will’s full name unfamiliar and formal, it doesn’t suit the Will Hannibal knows and remembers.

_Knew._

He swallows.

_Remembered._

“You asked, once,” he murmurs, French slurred but soft, taken up by the wind and carried away. He’s certain he’s heard, regardless, “what you would do without me.”

The bottle feels heavy against Hannibal’s thigh and he takes it up, letting it hang from his fingers as he drags up a knee to rest his wrist against.

“I told you you would live, do you remember?”

The flowers tremble, the wind leaves them be a moment, silence falls to the space once more. Hannibal smiles, pushes himself to stand. Without a word, he tilts the bottle, lets the last of the contents pour against the earth, soak into it, disappear.

“I suppose now I’ll have to do the same.”

He bends, presses his lips to the top of the gravestone, kisses there.

“Goodbye, Will.”

The bottle he sets by the flowers, just behind.

A scotch once shared, now finally finished.


End file.
